


Paying One's Dues

by fawatson



Category: The Mask of Apollo - Mary Renault
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:13:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/pseuds/fawatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ghost of Nikeratos' father lingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paying One's Dues

**Author's Note:**

> **Originally posted to:** maryrenaultfics at LiveJournal on 30/10/2010  
>  **Originally written for:** MRF's Spooky Challenge 2010  
>  **Prompt:** Lurking  
>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters and make no profit from them.

It wasn’t _quite_ how I had envisaged my fate. And it was not even as though I had not had a decent send-off. Niko had done all that was proper with the funeral; despite the poverty my death had left them in, no expense had been spared and my widow had seen to it that the coin was carefully placed under my tongue. Yet, when I got to that riverbank it was not there. It seemed my thankless daughter, all too aware she would need to earn her dower, had seen fit to start her savings at my soul’s expense. And so I lingered...and lurked.

I saw my son leave on tour with his new company. It was good of Lamprias to find him a place. Somehow the boy’s grief kept me tied to him, so that as I wandered and watched the deeds of the living, I kept pace with him. Not that I was _always_ there, you must understand. It is not that I was _haunting_ him. He had always been a good and true son to me and I would not have wanted to do _that._ It was simply that somehow, whenever he thought of me, I felt a tug and found myself there, at his side, watching over him. Of course that became infrequent as he found his feet and his career developed, and as the acuteness of his grief diminished so that he remembered less often. Nonetheless, from time to time, I found myself there, so I saw as he became established. I looked on proudly the first time he wore the third’s mask – and at such a young age. It was really no more than I had expected though; Niko had always had greater talent than I. 

And so, suddenly, I found myself there again. My summons came with a sharp tug this time, and a frisson of fear (if one could suggest a dead soul could feel such). 

_My father would have gone on._

My son’s thought shouted loud to me who hovered beside him, invisible to both Niko and the audience. It was no more than a glance before I took in the scene, realising his danger. Gods curse that Meidias his spite, but there was nothing I could do! Save...and thus I noticed. High up, circling, was the god: Apollo come in the guise of an eagle. Not the hawk (which was more usual), yet unmistakably the bird was divine. For whatever reason, invisible I might be, but not unseen – not to his eyes. He had been drawn, as I, to this little drama – to the sight of his acolyte in peril. 

I prayed as I had never done before. My entire life had been homage to his mystery, actor as I had been; yet now, as a mere shade, my prayer was heartfelt in a way it had never been in life. Perhaps that had been the problem before; perhaps that was why previously I had never really been more than second-rate as an actor. But now, in the ether, beside my son’s failing ropes, I sang his praises alongside my Niko, and the ecstasy flowed through us jointly. 

Our paen was answered. Niko found his feet again, and I...found myself once again on the near shore facing a grinning Charon, whose outstretched hand, this time, accepted my offering of three broken hemp strands.


End file.
